The birther conspiracy launched Trump’s political viability.
Evidence
No one has mastered racially coded language better than Donald Trump, who harvested the overwhelming majority of white evangelical votes in 2016 and 2020. Trump, also the master of publicity, clawed his way to public attention by perpetrating the so-called birther conspiracy, the malevolent falsehood that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not the United States, and was therefore constitutionally ineligible to be president. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 160
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Trumpism’s Islamophobic ideology predates Trump’s presidency, rooted in birtherism — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 230; The birther conspiracy framed Obama’s America itself as illegitimate — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 624; Trump’s rise was symptomatic of a preexisting militant evangelical worldview — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 9 (+1 more)
Related
- Birtherism delegitimated Obama by framing his presidency as unconstitutional (similarity 0.83)
- Trump’s rise was symptomatic of a preexisting militant evangelical worldview (similarity 0.83)
- The birther conspiracy framed Obama’s America itself as illegitimate (similarity 0.82)
- Trumpism’s Islamophobic ideology predates Trump’s presidency, rooted in birtherism (similarity 0.81)
- Trump’s 2016 evangelical support suggests racism never left the Religious Right’s core (similarity 0.80)
- The Religious Right’s origin in segregation explains its embrace of Trump. (similarity 0.79)
- Trumpism predates Trump and will outlast his presidency (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Trumpism’s Islamophobic ideology predates Trump’s presidency, rooted in birtherism
#expands(0.85) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 230 - The birther conspiracy framed Obama’s America itself as illegitimate
#expands(0.80) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 624 - Trump’s rise was symptomatic of a preexisting militant evangelical worldview
#corroborates(0.72) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 9 - Militant evangelical masculinity predated and prepared Trump-era politics
#corroborates(0.72) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 542